


A Rose by Any Other Name

by laCommunarde



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Memories, induction Process, takes place after season 1 episode 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9577583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laCommunarde/pseuds/laCommunarde
Summary: Kronos goes back to the Time Masters following his fight with Len. Len decided he is going to get Mick back by going in there himself. Unfortunately, and as Rip informs him, he will not retain any memories after the Induction Process. So he relies on something else.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta reader FarFlungStars!

Iepetus sat down to find Kronos prodding at his food with an expression somewhere between fascination and disgust on his face. “Something not to your liking, Kronos?” he asked.

Murphy turned to stare at him like he had grown another head. He did not care. Let Murphy stare.

“One of these days I’m going to go up and make food instead.”

That got interest along the table. “You remembering something from before?” asked the Jackal.

“Only that there is bad cooking, and then there is this.” Kronos picked up his spoon and tipped it, letting what the mess hall called stew fall out of the spoon.

Iepetus picked up his own spoon and shoved it into his mouth. It tasted like cardboard, not that he had any memory of ever having eaten cardboard, but it tasted how he imagined cardboard must taste. Still, it was not completely inedible. He shrugged. “Not bad. If you ask me.”

Murphy made a more obvious gesture than just a meaningful glance - this time with both hands signalling at him to stop, just out of Kronos’ field of vision - to ask why he was provoking Kronos. To be honest, he did not know. He just had the sense that this bounty hunter was an interesting, interesting person and was determined to find more about him. 

Kronos made an expression at him that was almost an expression of fascination.

“Hey, do you think maybe you two are like brothers or something because you two make the same expression when interested,” Murphy started.

They both slowly turned to Murphy in unison.

“Okay, okay. Just joking, yeah?”

The two met each other’s eyes. Iepetus gave a small nod. Murphy went down in the ensuing fight very quickly.

\--

"I see you two have met," Time Master Druse did not sound impressed.

"We only met today, but I've heard of his exploits," Iepetus responded.

"And the day you two meet is the day you start a brawl in the mess hall," Time Master Druse sounded like he was looking at something that made him want to vomit or crush it like a bug, but there was also something else there. Iepetus wanted to know what that something was.

"Murphy started it," Kronos said. 

Time Master Druse turned to study him. "Neither of you will know what this means, but I thought we'd wiped the delinquency out of you. Clearly not."

"I have made threats to the other bounty hunters before about how they should not bother me. Murphy did. It was only just," Kronos said. “Besides, he likes bar room brawls. First thing he did post-Induction was come up and tell me that he liked them.”

"Fine. As for you Iepetus, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"He annoyed me. And I wanted to find out what made Kronos tick after hearing about his exploits."

Time Master Druse turned to him with that expression again. It was somewhere near discomfort, his actions having a certain edge to them. "Why did you want to find this out?"

Iepetus answered, "It is important to know what how one's ally ticks and where one is one on the pecking order. Others, I found out by listening to stories. I could not do so with Kronos. So I went to inspect him." 

Time Master Druse looked between the two, his eyes and posture still showing discomfort and something that looked like a desire to run. "And have you satisfied your questions?"

Iepetus inclined his head. "Yes, sir. I should like to go out to track down pirates with someone as fearsome and as good at what he does as Kronos."

"That will have to wait, I'm afraid," Time Master Druse seemed easier.

Kronos nodded. "I work alone. But if there is a pirate who requires more than one bounty hunter, I should like to go out with Iepetus. He is competent."

That got Time Master Druse to grimace. "I won't recommend readjustment at the current time. But you are to tell me at once if you start feeling any attachment getting in the way of doing your jobs as bounty hunters."

Kronos and Iepetus nodded. "Yes, sir."

Time Master Druse set himself back down on his feet. "Very well. Iepetus, suit up. You're going out with the Jackal today to sniff out and lay a trap for a time pirate over in 1917 Russia."

"Communism, sir?" Iepetus asked.

"Actually no. Someone wants to give the Tsar's family future technology to help them stay in power."

A quotation swam up in Iepetus' mind. "Communism was always a red herring." He remembered sitting on a couch and listening to the quote and finding it enjoyable. There were others there too, but he couldn't make out their faces. He was leaning against one of the people - a guy with broad shoulders. He stored that for future information. Out loud, he agreed, "We can't have that." 

Time Master Druse studied him again, making the expression with his eyes slightly too wide again. 

Iepetus inclined his head. "I will go suit up." 

He headed from the room. Outside, it struck him that on one of his quarry, the expression and stance Time Master Druse had displayed would have been fear. He reviewed the conversation for what it was Druse could be afraid of. What he was coming up with was any attachment between him and Kronos. 

Interesting.

\--

Iepetus and the Jackal set out after they both had suited up. “So, who do you think is doing it?”

“No idea, Iepetus. Why does it matter besides? We do what we do.” He aimed with his gun and fake shot through the window, complete with sound effects.

Iepetus smirked. “It might be nice to search their weapons. Maybe get something a little more suitable to our jobs than this cumbersome thing.”

“You don’t like it, change it.”

Iepetus inclined his head. “Like it well enough. It’s just sometimes jobs call for a little subtlety. This is not subtle.”

The Jackal side-eyed him. “So say the bounty hunters dressed in full armor.”

“I know, right? I feel like Boba Fett every time I suit up.” Iepetus froze at the end of his statement. A memory of saying, “We go out for one lousy drink, and you guys somehow manage to pick a fight with Boba Fett.” He didn’t remember who he had said it to – that was hazy – but that he had said it and holding a weapon that was far from subtle, but far more to his taste than standard issue bounty hunter guns from the Time Masters.

The Jackal hadn’t noticed his thoughtful expression and instead laughed. “It’s designed so we can withstand more or less anything.”

"Just saying." The drawl came out automatically, strong enough to catch the Jackal's attention, if his quick head tilt and glance in Iepetus' direction was any indication. He stopped, tipping his head away.The Jackal didn't miss much, and if he suspected anything amiss, it was a likely ticket to the Induction Process. Therefore, he chose his accent with care before pointing out, “We wouldn’t need to be so indestructible if we could survey the place first.” 

The Jackal shook his head. “Let’s see what weapons they have. Other than that, we are in, out and done.”

\--

“So Rasputin had a nice weapon,” Iepetus commented, holding the gun in a crouch by the body and gesturing with it suggestively.

He said it in such a way that the Jackal stopped and closed his eyes tight. “No.”

Iepetus turned to him. “No, you don’t think he had a nice weapon?”

The Jackal reopened his eyes and gave Iepetus a look.

“Because if you don’t, I’m taking his weapon and I’m going to use it.” He flipped out the ammo cartridge and observed the type of ammo it took – well then, clearly not from around this time. 

The Jackal stood frowned at him. 

“Though clearly not on the same targets. No Russian queen in my future,” Iepetus kept on with the metaphor, humming a few bars of “Ra-Ra-Rasputin.” Something about what he had said twinged on something, but he couldn’t see what. He decided to leave it alone for now. 

The Jackal finally turned to him. “How is it you know so many references after the Induction Process?” 

Iepetus tipped his head. “It only takes memories. No interest in taking cultural references.” 

He slid the gun in his holster, as there were no objections from the Jackal, who was still too busy wincing from his mind’s attempts to merge the gun (now safely pocketed), the song, and the history, and stood. “You want to do the honors or should I?” 

The Jackal nodded at him. Iepetus keyed in a few buttons and called it in as a successful mission.

\--

Kronos was crouching by the replicator that deposited their food with a ticked off expression on his face, hitting the button until the thing binged at him. He crouched over it and said, “Ah. Yes. I would like it known that I don’t like sprouts. I get the feeling that I’ve never liked sprouts. Which bring up old memories, and I don’t want to have the old memories. So unless you want to be lit on fire like Sweden’s Christmas goat, I suggest you stop giving me sprouts.” 

The other bounty hunters watched as he contemplated shoving his plate into the garbage disposal. Murphy leaned back to chuckle. The Jackal barked a laugh. Iepetus smirked. Hugo raised an eyebrow and called out, “What’s your problem, Kronos?”

Kronos turned to the woman named Hugo. “What part of ‘I don’t like sprouts’ did you miss, Frenchie?”

Hugo shook her head. 

The Jackal laughed. “Why don’t you just order take out next time you’re out?”

Kronos said, “Because I don’t want to spend even more time out there than I have to.”

Iepetus shrugged. “Why don’t you have someone else bring it back to you?”

Kronos turned to answer him. “Because I don’t trust any of scrawny asses to know what good food is.”

Iepetus laughed. “You’re right, Kronos. Why don’t you bring your sprout burger here? I have no problem with it.”

Kronos shook his head. “One of these days, I’m going to show you all what real food tastes like.”

Murphy took another bite of his… something. Iepetus had to admit the jury was still out on what it actually was. “Tastes alright to me.” 

Hugo laughed. “The day you take over the kitchens, fry me up some onion soup and some actual stew with real meat. Anybody else have orders?”

The Jackal laughed. “Fine. Put me down for some oysters and a nice, spicy jambalaya. I want my nose to fall off.”

Kronos turned to him. “Have you ever had jambalaya? Have you ever had actual stew?”

The Jackal shrugged and turned to Hugo. “Not that I know. You?”

Hugo shook her head. “None of us have any memories. You know that, same as the rest of us. But it sounds good. Murphy, Iepetus, care to add anything?”

Murphy shook his head. “Stew sounds nice.”

Iepetus searched and found nothing forthcoming, but his taste buds called up something sweet and covered in honey and BBQ. “No, nothing. Something with meat and a nice honey BBQ sauce.”

Kronos’s face winced in pain.

Iepetus frowned at him. “I’m sorry. Did I mention something you don’t like?”

Kronos shook his head, but began looking anywhere but Iepetus. “Frenchie, Jackal, Law, set a date.” That said, he walked out of the mess hall.

Murphy stared after him. “Poor bastard.”

Iepetus turned to him. “What?”

The Jackal nodded. “Yeah.”

Iepetus asked, “He’s touchy.”

The Jackal turned to him. “We all start gaining back our memories, the ones taken from us by Induction. The Time Masters leave us to them if they don’t disturb the missions. Sometimes they do. Then we get zapped again. Not a very pleasant thing to go through once. Less pleasant the second time. In Kronos’ case, he went in for it voluntarily when the memories started to get too strong.”

Something that stung at the back of Iepetus’ mind made him snap his eyes over to the Jackal. “He’s not going in for that now, right?”

Murphy shook his head. “No, it’s not bad enough for that yet. Getting there though.”

The Jackal tipped his head. “You’re typically right about these things.”

Iepetus asked, “How many times has he been in?”

“One after the initial one when he got back.”

Hugo said, “Three. The first one didn’t take completely, so he went back in the following meal. Then the other.”

Murphy shook his head. “Man’s got some deep shite to work through.”

Hugo closed her eyes. “Don’t we all? I wouldn’t wonder too closely on that subject if I were you, Iepetus. Where’s your next job?”

The Jackal shook his head. “Just got back. Waiting to be assigned.”

“Iepetus, mind coming out with me?” Hugo said.

Iepetus nodded. “Where to?” 

“South Africa. 1980s. Stopping a time terrorist from assassinating Nelson Mandela.”

The Jackal hung his head. “Who the hell would do something like that?”

Hugo turned to stare at him. “Ask Murphy that. And consider if Mandela had been born at the wrong time or before the way that history went.” She drew her finger across her throat. “The Time Masters do tend to do that.”

The Jackal ground his teeth and sighed. “Sometimes…”

Murphy shook his head. “I can tell you from personal experience, Jackal: time terrorism doesn’t pay nearly as good as you expect. Particularly against the Time Masters.”

The Jackal laughed. “Murphy, you would know.”

Murphy inclined his head. “Well, I have to admit, I did have a good go at being a time IRA member for a while.”

Iepetus had a brief glimmer of someone (not Murphy) singing “Come Out Ye Black and Tans” at a bunch of cops while drunk off their skulls, and he smiled at the image and at Murphy. “You were?”

Hugo answered, “Until he accidentally appeared in the middle of the mess hall due to a little wonkiness with his crew’s time machine.”

“What can I say? I am Murphy’s Law’s bastard child,” Murphy shrugged.

“How many incidents are time terrorists versus time pirates?” Iepetus asked.

The Jackal tipped his head. “It depends. Certain periods in time everyone goes after, terrorist or pirate. Which is why we have bounty hunters permanently stationed at certain times. You will likely not meet them for a few lifetimes, but the Mateys are stationed in 1962 to make sure the world doesn’t end with the Cuban Missile Crisis. And then the pirates often sell things to the terrorists, or work with the terrorists for a cut.”

Iepetus’ mind called up a feeling of utter disdain for someone who wanted him to do a job for them. Judging by the disdain, he had turned them down. But that he had been approached probably meant he had done less than legal jobs. Which was probably how he ended up as a bounty hunter. He filed that to be dealt with later.

“So now a terrorist-pirate wants to kill Mandela in the 1980s?” Iepetus asked. _A memory swam of watching the first election after apartheid in South Africa on a crappy tv with two someones who were close to him with an interest they did not typically put into politics. “Really hope this Mandela guy wins,” someone said, and he agreed._

Hugo nodded. “Yes.”

“I will come with you.”

Hugo inclined her head. As Iepetus left to go get suited up, Hugo said a few words to the Jackal and nodded at Murphy. 

\--

The time terrorists ended up being a bunch of neo-Nazis and were mostly dealt with with Hugo and Iepetus’ excellent aim. 

One of them was kept alive to tell them if they had everyone. Iepetus broke the man’s arm. Whenever he was hesitant about answering any of Hugo’s questions or straight up lying (which Iepetus made sure only happened once), Iepetus would dig his fingers into theat freshly broken arm. Then answers poured.

At one point, however, the neo-Nazi managed to get his hand around a gun he had in his pocket and shot Iepetus’ armor off his arm with his broken arm. They detached the gun from his fingers, a quick slap of the gun by Iepetus and then grabbing it by Hugo as Iepetus made sure the injury was not so bad as to need urgent medlab. Once he was sure, he nodded at Hugo who backed up. Iepetus slid in, wrapped his long fingers on the hand without armor around the neo-Nazi’s throat and began whispering promises all the things he would do once they were finished with him. By the end of his speech, the man had started saying secrets unprompted. At the end of it, when they had found out all the secrets, Iepetus shot him and pulled out a pen to write down some of the secrets he had told as Hugo called in the mission. 

As the ink touched his skin, a memory of a movie swam up, of a man who had amnesia and therefore tattooed everything he wanted to remember to his skin, as clues to remember things by. 

Another memory came up along with that one and jarred him almost out of reality with its force: a conversation with a man named Rip Hunter:

_“It won’t work. You’ll be put through the induction process and then they’ll never let you remember enough to get yourself, let alone him.”_

_“That’s too bad, Rip. I’m the reason he was on this ship in the first place. I’m the reason he’s in there as well, ‘cause last I checked someone wanted him off the ship and didn’t care how. Now how bout you start providing me information I can work with as to how I’m gonna remember this mission inside. “Cause otherwise, I’m gonna have to come up with a way without complete information. Now is there any way I could tattoo it onto me?”_

_“No. They’ll check that.”_

_“Are there any memories they don’t take?”_

_“The induction process takes all memories related to who you are.”_

_“Which means it doesn’t take everything?”_

_“No. It leaves you with cultural and history references. Otherwise they would have to rebuild that. Plus, the induction process does not always block memories forever. Actually, I believe rather a high number of bounty hunters have gained back memories over the lifetimes they are in there.”_

_“But it could take lifetimes?”_

_“Yes. I’m afraid so.”_

_“Could I theoretically use a cultural reference as an inside joke or does that completely disappear?”_

_“You could theoretically. But then you would have to wait until someone brought it up.”_

_“Thank you, Rip. Wish I could say it’s been good working with you.”_

_“What you will undergo will be nothing short of death of personality. It will leave your body intact, but everything that makes you you will be gone.”_

_“What am I supposed to do, Rip?”_

_“Let him go.”_

_“Can’t. He’s my partner.”_

_“Well, then I hope they put you with him when the two of you are bounty hunters. But I wish you would reconsider. You are a very good team member.”_

_“Goodbye, Rip.”_

Iepetus came back to himself and found Hugo watching him. 

“Well?” she asked. “What did you just remember? Care to share?”

Iepetus knew he couldn’t just answer what he had seen. She would have to report that he had been trying to get out a fellow bounty hunter; he knew that. And they would never let him keep it; it would be viewed as getting in the way of doing his job, plus trying to keep another bounty hunter from doing theirs. They might even burn out his cultural references if they were told how he was using them. Therefore a sidestep: he would have to tell something true enough that it would cause him to focus on it like that but far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to tell what it actually was. Therefore, any mention of deliberate memory tricks was out. “I remembered I hate neo-Nazis with a passion. Shooting was too nice a death for this one.”

Hugo tipped her head. “I hate them too, Iepetus.” 

Iepetus turned to her. “We should go take care of the other threats he mentioned.”

Hugo shook her head. “We’ve taken care of the time terrorists. We must let history take care of the other threats.”

“Are we sure they didn’t distribute weaponry to pro-apartheid forces? We should double check.”

She wrapped her hand around his armor-bared arm. “That is the only time anomaly the Time Masters mentioned. Let’s go.” She headed back from their time ship.

He stared after her. “The only one or the only one they mentioned?”

She stopped mid stride. “If you continue with that line of questioning, I will recommend you be wiped again. Unless…” She tipped her head and raised her eyebrows at him.

He inclined his head. “I will stop with that line of questioning. We should get back. Though perhaps you should not try to blackmail me until you know me better.”

“I know well enough that that wasn’t what you saw in your memory flash,” she leaned over to whisper to him. He checked to make sure the blinking recording light on her wrist wasn’t on. It wasn’t, so it was probably just caution. 

He turned to her with his eyes dancing. “Well, we both have our secrets, don’t we?”

She took a step back. Evidently he was not supposed to get as much out of that as she thought he had. Let her keep it that way. “Let’s get back, shall we?”

 

\--

Once back, he lounged to one side of the mess hall with a book on how a time drive worked and surveyed the bounty hunters’ mess.

One of the others was his quarry, the one he had been willing to go through the Induction Process to get back. Now he just had to figure out which one, or find the movie reference that called that knowledge up, because apparently he was a giant dork who thought he would remember enough movies to be able to call up references, which to be honest, seemed to be working. 

He peered at Hugo, who was leaning back against one of the wall with a cup of coffee and a - was that an actual egg and actual cheese on a baguette? Clearly take out then. She put her lips to the cup and took a sip and smiled in wistful memory, if her expression was any judge. How many memories she had was information she kept close to her chest, but it seemed like she had more than most and those she had she was willing to turn in others to protect, or maybe that was just him. If it was her, she certainly seemed to have enough memories to have decided for herself that she would rather be here, even if it was not her first choice. 

Then there was the Jackal. Iepetus had to admit he would like to be here for the Jackal, who from what Iepetus had seen was on the top of his game and could chase down any time pirates in the time stream or out of it that he gained knowledge of. The man did not have as many memories as Hugo, for sure, but he had been a bounty hunter for several lifetimes, and across several missions. 

Murphy was funny and was chafing at the Time Masters’ bit, but Iepetus sensed the closest he had ever gotten to Ireland was watching Boondock Saints and drinking too much on St. Patty’s Day. A memory once again swam up of a bar fight with a grin and a broad shouldered partner laughing along beside him (the same broad-shouldered individual as he remembered watching movies with). Broad-shouldered Murphy was not. If anything, he was even thinner than Iepetus and shorter by far.

The Pilgrim was not the bounty hunter in question, but she was a fascinating individual with a talent that would be awesome if it was less terrifying. Having her delete someone from the timeline would not be the way Iepetus would choose to go. (He found it worthwhile to note that the Time Masters were also scared of her.) Supposedly, she had been recalled from a previous mission and transferred into a mission Kronos was no longer on, because, and this was something Iepetus was taking other bounty hunters’ words on but he believed it, Kronos had showed up and demanded to be taken off of it or he would give the Pilgrim the best date to remove him from the timeline. They had taken him off of the mission at once.

And then there was Kronos, who fascinated Iepetus. Highly respected, highly feared, very good at what he did. He could track anything across the timeline and could fix ships in mid time. While he wasn’t as fast as the Jackal at chasing them, or as clever as Iepetus at trapping them, he was anthe inexorable force that just came at his prey wherever and whenever they were hiding. Beyond his reputation and the fact that he found him fascinating though, he knew nothing about him, other than his willingness to go through the Induction Process multiple times and his willingness to be deleted from the timeline. If he was Iepetus’ quarry, then Iepetus was going to need to do some work to convince him not to give up his life so easily. Actually, he found the bounty hunter interesting enough that he might just do that anyway.

Either way, now he had to find out if Kronos was his partner turned bounty hunter. First, he had to get him alone to ask him so questions. A potential way was to get him on a mission with him. However, Iepetus was still too junior a bounty hunter to have his own time ship, but Kronos did. Which meant he would have to be assigned to a mission with Kronos. 

He closed the book on time drives and started thinking about what excuse would work.

\--

“You want to be assigned with Kronos?” Declan turned to him. There was the same worried look he had seen in Druse’s eyes. 

Iepetus nodded. “Yes, Time Master Declan.”

Declan frowned at him. “You are aware he tends to work alone. And if he doesn’t think you’re competent or if you don’t follow orders, he’s just as likely to kill you as abandon you whenever the missions take you.”

Iepetus nodded. “I would too if someone screwed up a mission. I want to see him in action. I hear he’s very good.”

Declan pursed his lips. “I want to say yes and assign you to a job together. However, I must ask him. Also, do you know what he is on at all?”

Iepetus inclined his head. “Does it matter? I take it I will receive a briefing same as always.”

Declan studied him. “Just be glad I didn’t assign you to his previous mission.”

“Yes, the one he got taken off of.”

Declan said, “The one he demanded to be taken off of.”

“So I heard. What was the mission? Was it something personal to him? I thought the Time Masters didn’t typically assign bounty hunters to their own timelines.”

“It involved a Time Master who went rogue,” – that word caused a feeling of intense amusement and pride in Iepetus’ chest. – “and formed a crew to bring down the Time Masters, the bounty hunters, and the future.”

“So time terrorists then?” 

Declan gave a small nod in response to Iepetus’ question. 

“And I take it Kronos was one of the one selected to be on that crew and then was brought in and given the Induction Process.” 

Declan did not respond to this supposition but his eyes were showing the truth in the statement and furthermore that he was impressed by Iepetus’ reasoning. 

“But that still doesn’t answer my question as to why the Time Masters decided he was best… unless the Time Masters wanted to hurt the crew as much as possible or were figuring he knew the crew best. Stop me if I’m wrong.”

Declan approached him and said to him in hushed tones that spoke of a co-conspirator act, but a quick survey of his body language showed it was just an act. “You are correct. What do you think of it so far?” 

He thought about it. From a purely calculating perspective, if they thought that it would hurt the Time Master aboard (unlikely given what Iepetus had seen of the way Time Masters treated anyone who wasn’t one of them) and the crew (more likely, a crew unfamiliar with the bounty hunters and the Induction Process having to see the before and after of a fellow crewmember), it was designed to be psychological warfare. Psychological warfare either worked on naïve people with a strong connection to morals or someone aboard was close to him, possibly both. “I think it’s a sonovabitch move but if you’re willing to do it, it’s effective. Did it have the desired effect?”

“That depends.” 

“On what?” Iepetus asked.

“It is still ongoing.”

Iepetus inclined his head.

Declan peered at him with querying eyes. “Why do you want to be assigned with Kronos?”

Iepetus considered and considered that he could find no real reason for it, or then sheer curiosity and concern that the other bounty hunter was going to do something foolish. “I want to find out what makes him tick.”

Declan nodded. “As you told Time Master Druse. Why?”

Iepetus shook his head. “I do not know. But I think we could be very effective at getting our tasks done.”

Declan stared at him a few moments longer. “I will recommend you be put on a team with him.”

\--

“The only reason I accepted this was because I find you competent,” Kronos announced as soon as he saw Iepetus waiting by his time ship. 

“I find you competent as well.”

Kronos lips curled up in a sneer. “I’m an idiot and an asshole.” It was the most emotion Iepetus had yet seen him display. It stung Iepetus, more so since he didn’t know why. Kronos turned to Iepetus. “Well, get on.”

Iepetus inclined his head and walked onto Kronos’ time ship. Kronos sat down in his captain’s chair. Iepetus noted Kronos had removed all other chairs and shrugged, sitting on the floor and feeling his back stretch in ways it had missed. 

“Ghost. Plus one,” Kronos said.

“Kronos, good to see you again.”

“Ghost, Iepetus needs a chair.”

“I’m fine, Ghost,” Iepetus said from where he was reclining.

“Make the chair anyway.” Kronos turned his attention, though not his gaze, to Iepetus. “You, sit in it.”

A chair formed and Iepetus sat, pulling down the safety, but gave Kronos’ back an annoyed stare. Kronos put the time ship in gear and flew out of there.

Once they were in the time stream, he stopped and stood, then walked over to Iepetus. “Now that it’s just the two of us, why did ask to go on a mission with me? And if you aren’t honest, I’ll kill you.” Decked out as Kronos was in full armor, it could have been hard for Iepetus to decipher what his expression was. However, there was no mistaking the cold, murderous gaze he was giving him. It made Iepetus’ spine crawl.

Two could play at that game. Iepetus inclined his head and returned Kronos’ expression with his own indolent one. His voice, when he spoke, was deeper into the speech patterns he recognized from the memories than he would have liked, but it couldn’t be helped. “Stop trying to threaten me. We both know if you wanted me dead, I would be. You got superior strength and hand-to-hand combat, but I got superior planning and gunmanship. And you and I both know that moment of hesitation gave me the upper hand.” 

Kronos pulled his head back and exhaled audibly through his nose. It sounded like surprise in a person who didn’t like surprises. “Time Masters didn’t teach you to talk like that.”

Iepetus tipped his head. “No. It seems that old speech patterns are coming back first. But speech patterns hardly interfere with a mission, do they? And Murphy and the Jackal and Hugo all have far more memories than I do.” 

Kronos grunted at him. “They interfere with other’s abilities to do their job. Now, I’m asking again: why did you want to go on a mission with me?”

Iepetus frowned. “Because you’re competent and I know next to none of your backstory. Murphy’s was easy. Former IRA member picked up by time terrorists trying to get the Brits off their country’s back, if I’m right. The Jackal’s is a little more difficult, I’d say very moral man before he became a time pirate. Probably Caribbean. Hugo is interesting. French, but as though she’s reliving French stereotypes, so transplanted young. And then there’s you. You asked to be wiped again. Why? It was unpleasant enough the first time. Was there something you wanted to forget?”

Kronos used his strength to haul Iepetus out of the seat with a tight grip on his upper arms. For a moment Iepetus was certain Kronos was going to break his neck. “Leave me alone.”

Iepetus curled his fingers around Kronos’ hands. “Fine. Then let’s leave it at I think you’re competent, so I wanted to be partners with you.”

Kronos dropped him and took a step back as though someone had decked him. He frowned at Iepetus, eyes darting everywhere as though trying to figure something out. “If I say the word Waverider, does that mean anything to you?”

Iepetus frowned. “The job you were on that the Pilgrim is now on ‘cause you asked to be taken off of it?”

Kronos prompted, “Anything else?”

Iepetus tried to recall, but his memory was pulling a blank.

Kronos sighed. “Understand I don’t do partners.” 

“But you did once?” Iepetus’ mind called up how Kronos had been sent against the Waverider and his earlier supposition that someone must either be very moral or very close to the man Kronos had been. If it was someone very close, then they could be his former partner and the reason he didn’t do partners now. Possibly someone Kronos had killed. Possibly someone who responded badly and was still out there. Possibly someone Kronos had the opportunity to kill but couldn’t. He nodded. “Ahh.”

Kronos stiffened. “Leave it, bounty hunter.” 

Iepetus inclined his head. “Leaving it, Kronos.”

Kronos sat back in his seat. “Good. Then I won’t have to kill you.” He shifted the timeship into gear again.

“Good luck trying.” Iepetus snorted.

“Just for that I’m going to subject you to my favorite music.”

“Thought you were too recently wiped to have favorites. Definitely didn’t think you listened to music.”

Kronos tipped his head. “Some things come back faster than others. Particularly when you want to avoid the others.”

Iepetus smiled. “Alright let’s hear it.”

Kronos put on “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” followed by “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix, followed by “Ashes to Ashes” by David Bowie. By the fifth song in, Iepetus was starting to get the theme. 

“You like fire,” he observed.

“Liked. I was a pyromaniac. So they tell me.” 

“Still?” Iepetus gestured at the speakers.

Kronos turned to give him a sideways glance. “You really think they wouldn’t fix that?”

Iepetus tipped his head, acknowledging that the Time Masters would definitely try to fix that.

“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t enough of a dork to remember songs that have fire in the title and program them into Ghost the first time around.”

Iepetus grinned. “I get that. What else are you into?”

Kronos tipped his head. “Ninja movies. Die Hard and that genre. Aliens, the one with Ripley, ya know? Anime, Ghost has a whole collection.”

Iepetus nodded. “Cool. We should watch some.”

Kronos gestured. “You can. I haven’t touched any since I got back.”

“How long should it take to get there?”

“Are you actually asking ‘are we there yet?’” Kronos sounded amused.

“No, I was asking how long it would take. But alright. Fine. Are we there yet? Happy?” Iepetus asked.

Kronos’ back arched a little straighter. Iepetus could tell that if he was walking there would have been a bounce to his step. He moved his hand forward on the gear shift. 

Iepetus had never before experienced acceleration that fast in the timestream. He determined that he would like to try that again, that he was an adrenaline junkie and in all likelihood that would get him killed someday. Though perhaps he would wait until he stopped being sick on the floor or maybe when the world felt upright again.

He became aware that Kronos was making a sharp noise that sounded like… was that Kronos laughing? He peered at the back of Kronos’ chair to see that Kronos had an expression of delight on his face and then beyond Kronos at the window to see that Kronos was skipping the ship along the walls. Iepetus unfastened his safety and walked up to watch from behind Kronos’ chair.

“Jackal taught me this,” he informed Iepetus.

“This is so cool,” Iepetus said back.

“Yeah? You haven’t seen nothing yet.” Kronos bounced them into the wall halfway and then hit the lower engines, same ones the Jackal had explained were for making landing less bumpy. 

The timeship zoomed into high gear - he could feel the drag and the timeship attempting to autocorrect - and then everything blurred.

“It like in Star Trek…” Iepetus said. “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It’s five year mission…”

“Technically, I’m the captain. I should be saying Kirk’s lines.” 

_And there was a memory tied to that of a scifi convention with him and that other who meant a lot to him dressed as various characters – they must have gone more than once, since there were multiple costumes, including one where that other person had gone as Kirk with a ripped yellow shirt and he had gone as Picard and had worked for weeks to master that accent. He was also pretty sure they had robbed a store while flirting with one of the cashiers._

“Then say them.”

Kronos stiffened again. “Listen, you will gain nothing out of me remembering more and more things from my life. It was unpleasant. And now my memories of it are done.” 

Iepetus felt a well of sadness open up in him at that and wondered if the person he came to rescue felt the same or if Kronos was that person. In which case he had screwed up, badly. “Sorry your life sucked so bad.”

Kronos grunted. “Unimportant now. I don’t have those memories anymore.” He shifted the gear again and pulled them out of the edges of the time stream. “Now, why don’t you go watch a movie and stop pestering me?”

Iepetus gave a soft scoff under his breath but went to go find Kronos’ movie collection. 

Kronos wasn’t kidding when he said he had an awesome movie collection. Iepetus had finished Die Hard and was halfway done Aliens when they arrived and left off a part of his suit to continue copying over the remaining movies.

\--

Kronos turned to him as they got off the ship. “What do I call you?”

“Iepetus is my name.”

Kronos’ posture changed to one that was standing up a little straighter. “I don’t like it.”

“You call Hugo Frenchie. Jackal you call Jackal. What do you call Murphy and the Pilgrim?”

“Murphy is Law, based on Murphy’s Law. Pilgrim is impressive enough to just be that.” He turned to stare at Iepetus. “I’m calling you Pest.”

Iepetus shrugged. “Alright. Pest’ll do.” 

Kronos tipped his head. 

“So what is our mission?” Iepetus asked.

He could almost hear Kronos’ attention snap back to the mission. “Stopping some time pirates from selling tech on the Venetian docks. Did you know Venice’s docks act as a giant fence between the rest of the world and Europe for a number of years?”

Iepetus felt a tug of memory trying to reassert itself on his mind, and followed it to a memory of telling someone that while they were there. That also brought up another problem though. “Isn’t Venice one giant floating dock?”

Kronos nodded. “Which is why they sent me.”

Iepetus glanced at Kronos’ armor and the schematics of his own. “You planning on going in decked out in your armor?”

“You got a better plan, Pest?”

“Venice has gondolas, right? Let’s borrow one of those. I can go as your gondolier. You can dress in whatever noblemen wore. I imagine it’s covering enough that you can carry your gun, no problem.”

Kronos considered. “And that will let us find the time pirates?”

“Better than going in as we are now.”

Kronos nodded. “Let’s try it. You look up what people wore. I’ll park the Shell.”

\--

Kronos wore dark robes, hints of his green armor serving as his Zipon visible beneath his robes: conservative but not someone anyone would notice. Iepetus had to give Ghost a nod for the AI’s taste in clothing and ability to hide Kronos’ gun so it looked like a period appropriate weapon. Iepetus himself wore a blue Zipon and very tight pants, which made Kronos smirk whenever he saw Iepetus, which only served to make Iepetus lounge on things after he noticed Kronos’ amused expression. Kronos frowned in confusion and shook his head whenever he did this.

They borrowed a gondola from outside a party, the noises of which said that the rich, young punks inside were well on their way to being completely trashed, and the gondoliers had left their boats for just long enough for Iepetus to climb in and push it down a side canal to Kronos, who climbed in beside him. Iepetus pushed them of the side and then stuck the pole into the water and they were off, undercover so no one seeing them would look twice. 

Out in the gondola, Kronos uncovered the technology piece set into his arm and typed a few commands. It pulled up a map of the city. He studied it for a few moments. “What are you seeing?” Iepetus asked.

“That sometimes the best way to track is to ask questions.” He cast a glance at Iepetus. “And before you take that as an invitation, that doesn’t mean that it is most of the time.”

Iepetus scowled at him. “So let’s go ask.”

Kronos gestured. “That way.”

Iepetus steered them in the direction Kronos pointed.

\--

Two hours and a lot of questions to seedy individuals along Venice’s seedier dockways later, Iepetus and Kronos marched into the center of a trade for the weapons. They stopped when they saw Kronos’ gun and shiny armor. Even though his helmet was still off, a pirate murmured, “Oh shit. It’s Kronos…”

Kronos grunted in assent. 

“Yes, you know him,” Iepetus responded.

Kronos began striding forward as the time pirates were still frozen trying to decide what to do. 

Which seemed to give them impetus to flee. Kronos shot after them, into a thing that shimmered just as their own ship did when it was cloaked and someone fired at it. He hit one of the pirates, who went down. 

A bullet from a rooftop above clanked off his armor. Iepetus shot back in the direction it had come. There was a cry. An electric blast rained down from a different rooftop, again aimed at Kronos. 

“Kronos! You take pirates! I got snipers!” 

“Got it,” Kronos grunted. Iepetus shot down the sniper with the laser, so the laser felt to the tiles ground below. He darted over, pocketed it and returned to watch Kronos’ back as another shot was fired from a side street.

Kronos kicked the time pirate who he had shot down, and fastened his wrists and ankles in bounty hunter issue zip ties. Then he went after the others. 

Someone came at him with a period appropriate dagger, shouting something at him in Italian. The dagger split into three. Kronos reached past the dagger, letting it fall useless against his armor, caught the man’s forearm and snapped it. He took the dagger and was going to toss it away, but thought about the bounty hunter behind him and handed it over his shoulder to him. “Useless to me. Thought you might like it.”

“What the…? Ooh!” Iepetus responded. 

A glint caught Kronos’ eye. “To your left!” Iepetus aimed and fired in a smooth motion and the time pirate went down. 

“How many more are there you way?” Iepetus asked. 

Someone shoved a torch that had been lighting the square at Kronos. “Not this one,” he answered back, ducking out of the way.

Iepetus turned and laughed at the fire. “Fire, really?” 

“I know, right?” Kronos closed his hands on the torch and pulled, planting his foot against the boy who had shoved it at him. The torch came free. He kicked the boy, already overbalanced from the loss of the makeshift weapon, head over heels into the water. 

“Four more.” 

“Turn.” 

They did, Iepetus shooting with his gun and his aim at one of them who was trying to make for the ship. He went down.

“Guy over here. Looks local. I call dibs.” Iepetus was aware of something bright and hot happening behind him. Then of something bright running past out of his periphery, only to jump into the canals.

“Did you light that guy on fire?”

“It was the weapon I had on hand.” 

Iepetus laughed. “Keep it. You like it.”

“Yes. I do. What are you going to do about it?” Kronos’ voice sounded like a warm challenge.

“Split up. I’m gonna take the one on your right behind the crates,” Iepetus answered.

“I have the two on your left.” Kronos gestured.

The remaining three went down easily. 

No one else wanted to attack. The time pirates who were tied up got the one who were unconscious to a central location, under Iepetus’ coaxing with gestures and taps with the muzzle of his gun. Kronos radioed it in. Then they sat in front of their invisible time ship, eating something Iepetus had picked up on the way over. 

“We worked well together,” Iepetus observed. 

Kronos nodded. “We did. But that’s the problem.”

Iepetus tipped his head toward Kronos. “Explain.”

“Your nickname shouldn’t be Pest. It should be Doppelganger.” 

“Doppelganger of whom?”

Kronos gritted his teeth. “I don’t know you. You don’t get to ask so many questions.” He handed Iepetus back the food. “Come on. Let’s bring the spare time ship and our captured pirates back to the Vanishing Point.” 

They got their captives onto the ship. Kronos was silent during the loading process, occasionally stealing glancing at Iepetus and recoiling at though in surprise but quickly looking away and otherwise saying nothing directly to Iepetus.

Iepetus reviewed how good it felt to be working together, watching Kronos’ back while Kronos watched his. How effective it was against anyone they could come up against. He recalled how Kronos had handled the torch, the ease with which he had lit the guy on fire, the fact that that was his first thought. And then there was the simple fact that working Kronos felt right. 

After the Shell had taken off, he sat on the floor, legs stretched out, staring up at Kronos considering and drumming his fingers along the floor.

“Cut that out, Doppelganger.”

“What?”

“Whatever you are doing. Stop it. It’s reminded me who I was; it’s reminding me of someone from before, and I don’t like it.”

Iepetus got to his feet, anchoring his gun. “Kronos, I think I knew you. I think you are my partner. I think I came to get you back.”

Kronos froze. Not even his chest moved with breath. His face was the only thing that moved, that slid into a grimace, then into a baring of teeth, then into an expression of increasing pain. He lowered his eyebrows once, twice. His entire body shook as a tremble ran up his spine. He stopped it, then gritted his teeth and growled, “Get out.”

“Kronos, I…”

“There is no fucking way you’re him. You may look like him, but you aren’t. He wouldn’t do what you did, which was a stupid ass decision if you want my opinion. He wouldn’t do it for anybody. That’s just who he was. You playing make-believe with my memories isn’t going to get you anything but dead. So last chance before I kill you. Get out.” 

“We are literally in the timestream.”

“The spare ship.”

“You’re kidding.”

Kronos whipped out his gun and aimed it at Iepetus in a smooth motion. Iepetus checked: the safety was already off, though his finger was hovering too close to the trigger for trigger safety. The point was clear, one more comment and Kronos would get twitchy and shoot him, even by accident.

“Fine. I’ll get out of the room and won’t talk to you again.”

Kronos grunted that that was acceptable. 

“Bastard,” said Iepetus on the way by. Kronos growled back at him.

He sat in the loading bay, staring out the window at the other time ship until they docked.

\--

Kronos stalked off, leaving the Jackal and Iepetus to collect the captive time pirates and catalogue the time ship.

“She might go to you. Any thoughts on what you want to name her?” The Jackal asked.

“No idea.” 

“Nothing coming up in the memories?” The Jackal glanced at him.

“Not yet. A whole lot of references, but no real memories.”

“How about any rebellious tendencies?”

“Did Kronos tell you I talk too much and have a love-hate relationship with regulation?” Iepetus asked.

The Jackal grinned. “No. But what’s did you do to him out there anyway?”

“He said I reminded him of someone,” Iepetus stared down the corridor Kronos had gone down.

The Jackal tipped his head, eyes flashing across Iepetus’ face. “That’s not good.”

“Why?”

“He might go get another Induction Process if he remembers that there was someone.”

So it was imperative that Iepetus reminded himself of everything sooner rather than later. “Tell you what, Jackal, I am worn down. Is there anywhere I can go to be uninterrupted for a while, after we’re done cataloguing?” 

“I’ve found floating out in the timestream helps if you tether yourself onto something. Setting 1056 on the replicator creates something that straps you in quite nicely. Over by the time jetties to the right of the loading station. I’ll finish cataloguing this catch for you.” 

Iepetus inclined his head in thanks. 

The Jackal was still gazing at him. He gazed back. “How did your mission with Kronos go?” The Jackal repeated.

“He is beautiful in action,” Iepetus observed. “I wish…” He stopped himself from saying it out loud.

Jackal tipped his head, the corners of his lips pulling away from his teeth. “You understand.” Iepetus was not sure he did, but he inclined his head nonetheless and headed to the loading station. 

Setting 1056 provided him with a grappling hook at his belt and a mask for the time stream. He tied the hook onto a bar by the loading station. His hands remembered the knot, though he did not: a fact his mind chose to remember a pun about – something with a rabbit and bear and little something with the rabbit saying “Can you tie a knot?” and the little something saying, “I cannot,” and the rabbit saying, “So you can knot?” and the little something saying, “I cannot knot.” He remembered making that joke to a small girl named Lisa, who his mind identified as sister and his heart identified as he raised her because like hell he was letting his dad do it. He remembered his dad too as he was drifting out to the end of the rope.

He drifted past the remains of ships that had not turned in time to get into the loading station. Some of them looked like time pirates who had come looking for a fight, which they had lost after a vicious battle. Some looked like they had been privateers, for there were timeships of the line, modified with technology that was not Time Master tech, maybe who had been playing both sides a little too obviously.

He reached the end of the rope with a tug and looked around at the nearby area - an area surrounded by a pirate time ship on one side and a little life-raft on the other, and a privateer ship on the third – and settled into the middle of it. 

There, he plugged the collection of movies from Kronos’ ship into his suit and with the tap of a button began playing them. If any references were to be found as to how to get Kronos back, they would be here, in what they had watched together, before either of them had been bounty hunters.

Halfway through the Studio Ghibli collection, in a movie called Spirited Away, he came across the scene of Chihiro making a deal with Yubaba – her name in exchange for the chance to get her parents back – and thus becomes Sen. 

A memory burned its way onto the backs of his retinas: _“You can have my name, everything about me. Just, if I get Kronos to remember and to come with me, you will give us free passage out of here and to wherever we want to go.”_

_Druse, the Time Asshole, looked intrigued, “Everything, Captain Cold, master thief? You would give all of that up for the unlikely chance to save someone who came back willingly and whom you couldn’t get back the first time you tried to convince him to come back.”_

_“Got it in one, Druse. The Captain Cold gig doesn’t feel right without Heatwave, and I make it a matter of honor that I never leave a member of my team behind, least of all Mick.”_

_Druse nodded. “Very well. We agree to the conditions. If you manage to get him to remember and to agree to go with you, you will have free passage out of here. In exchange, you will go through Induction, and forget everything you ever were, Leonard Snart.”_

And his name echoed in his head, and everywhere it struck a new memory sprang back.

“Don’t cry, little sister,” he joked with a nine-year-old Lisa about the video they had “borrowed” from the local rental store, and she had shoved him but had stopped crying over the nightmare (how were they to know she wouldn’t like vampire movies?), and he had tucked her back in before rejoining Mick, also standing there checking under her bed and in her closet with a flashlight, in their bedroom. 

“All I’m saying is she starts calling us Mommy and Daddy, you get to be Mommy,” Mick muttered, lying his head down on Len’s chest as a pillow.

“Shh. It’ll be Daddy and Papa, and Lisa wouldn’t dream of it,” Len returned. Mick laughed and let Len stroke the back of his head until they fell asleep.

Another, in a much brighter glare: “I hate both of you so much right now,” Mick said, and they each took an arm and skated him around the ice in the new hockey skates with the flames up either side they had gotten him until he got the hang of them.

Lisa – he had forgotten her, or rather deliberately buried her. He had no doubt she was fine. She could care for herself now, and he had trained into her from a very young age that one day, some job or other might take their lives. It was why he had insisted she get at least two other career options, so should she decide stealing was not for her if that happened, she could do other things. Hell, with her mechanical engineering degree, she could even try for STAR Labs: given that they knew of her less than legal past, she could list jobs that would have failed without her expertise. 

Mick, though: Mick could not care for himself. Or rather he could; he just didn’t. Mick who had gotten himself arrested for arson and sentenced for life until Len had busted him out. Mick who had once gotten arrested and put on death row and only taken off when Len had given a year of his life in the form of an internship (which Mick was never finding out about) to a nonprofit working both to end the death penalty (which Len having been in prison and having murdered a few people was all in favor of) and working to lessen the sentences for people with mental illness in prison, which just happened at a key moment in Missouri’s deinstitutionalization and shift to community behavioral health and also happened to be where he met his favorite shrink (and the shrink who worked best with him, who accepted that he was the muscle on thief jobs and that that wasn’t likely to change). 

Because Mick was a pyromaniac, and had anxiety and occasional bouts of depression, and with each of those came memories. Mick in the warehouse they called home most often with his fire stone burning hot little chemical papers that burned difference colors and different heat. Len listened again as Mick explained the different heats that each chemical reaction made and how each color affected him differently, some he used to calm anxiety, some to ease depressive kicks, and other when he just needed to light something on fire. (He filed that away for future use). And there were times when he didn’t handle it: Len’s mind burned with a memory of the time he’d had to jump into a building Mick had set on fire while on a job and had lost himself staring at the inferno, when Len had hauled him to a clinic (where they wouldn’t report him) to deal with the third degree burns that now covered his back, shoulders and arms in scar tissue and told him in no uncertain terms in a letter that he had screwed up a job, (a fault which he normally would award with a bullet to the head, not dart into a burning building to save the person who had screwed up that badly, but Mick was no ordinary team member) and walked out of his life for the next two years. 

And there were other memories as well. Of Mick’s mental illnesses. Of his own bouts of anxiety and what the prison docs (and Mick’s shrink the once he had gone in there to how Mick was doing during that two years and had somehow ended up telling them about his life) liked to called adverse childhood experiences, which he thought was a not very descriptive, crock-of-shit term. Though his dad – Lewis – was a piece of shit: he had to agree with Mick’s shrink on that one.

His issues: anxiety, completionism, not trusting anyone, generally being a cold bastard – the traits they had used to rebuild him into Iepetus – and a couple others. He remembered being an adrenaline junkie, but as one remembers something from long ago. He had lost it as part of the process of being rebuilt. The memories were slotting back into place. The personality traits that were not a part of him now, not so much. He wasn’t just Leonard Snart anymore, for all the memories he had. He was also the bounty hunter Iepetus, who could work well on a team, but could also display deadly effectiveness when on his own, although the Time Masters had never trusted him to be alone, always keeping him on a team.

Team called up its own set of memories, with a list of names: Sam Scudder, Rosa Dillion, a list of bad dates Lisa had had in her twenties that she had insisted on having join his team for jobs, and then the crew of the Waverider: Sara Lance, Jax Jackson, Ray Palmer, Martin Stein, Kendra Saunders, and the Waverider’s captain, Rip Hunter, former Time Master, lying sonovabitch, who believed him capable of killing Mick Rory, his partner, the person he might even call the other half of his soul, at least within the confines of his own mind, never out loud.

Never out loud. He searched the new memories. For all he had felt it was clear, had made it clear in his own language, had all but stated in his own way that he wanted Mick beside him in all the ways that counted, he had never confirmed that Mick felt the same way, or understood that he felt that way.

He needed to let Kronos know who he was and how he wanted him back, particularly before Kronos tried to get another Induction Process done. He tugged back the grappling hook, and it pulled him back into the station.

There, he turned right and wandered smack into Hugo, Murphy, The Jackal and a few others he did not recognize by name. Their eyes all snapped to him. Judging from their startled glares, they had thought the place more secret than it was.

“I don’t care what you’re doing. Just stay out of my way when I get my partner out.”

The Jackal turned to Hugo, and she nodded. “Stay out of our way when we declare a revolt against them.”

He let that match up with what he had seen. “Call the Waverider. She can help.”

“The Waverider? The one Kronos was after? The one the Pilgrim is after?” The Jackal asked.

“Yeah, but they’ll stop her. And if you get in touch with them and tell them what you want to do, I’m sure they’ll help. They’re heroes. They do things like that.”

“They know what the Time Masters are doing?” Hugo blinked and inclined her head. 

“That depends what the Time Masters are doing, doesn’t it?” He smiled.

Hugo sighed. “Have you heard of Vandal Savage?”

“Waverider was going after him.”

Hugo swore under her breath. “Rip Hunter is an idiot.”

He inclined his head in assent with what she was saying.

“But the Time Masters are even more so. They are helping Vandal Savage and screwing with the timeline in the process.” 

He stared at her contempt for that, at all of theirs. The Jackal flared his nostrils. Murphy crossed his arms across his chest. The others did their own signs of agitation. She had a Time Master’s contempt for screwing with the timeline. It would work with how young she must have been taken. She must have been very promising. He could only surmise what had made them put her through the Induction Process. Probably stuff like this. He looked away.

“Do you want to help?” The Jackal asked.

“Been there, done the hero thing. Right now, my job is to get my partner back, and if it doesn’t involve that, I don’t care.” His mind pulled up a memory about the usefulness of distractions and favors. “But perhaps, we can help provide each other’s distractions.”

Hugo tipped her head. “You get us the Waverider; I’ll personally make a distraction that will help you get your partner out.”

He shrugged. “Help me get my partner out, he can go get the Waverider. I ain’t leaving him here.”

Hugo and the Jackal met eyes. “Your partner is Kronos, isn’t he?” the Jackal asked.

“If I say yes, what then?”

“You’re fucked, man,” Murphy said. 

Hugo held up her hand. “You’re the one he keeps trying to forget. The reason he keeps getting the Induction Process again.”

He snapped his head around to her. “Me?”

The Jackal turned to observe her and nodded. “You left him for the Waverider.”

“I didn’t leave him. I asked him to come with me and he said yes.” But his mind called to light a memory he never wanted to experience again, had never wanted to experience the first time through: _of Mick trying to get him off the ship by making a deal with the time pirates, and make a deal he had, and Len had chosen the Waverider: they would have killed her crew otherwise, his mind supply. But that excuse seemed as paltry to him now as it must have to Mick at the time. Mick would have had a way for them to get out alive, or more exactly would have left enough time for him to come up with a plan. He knew it now. When Mick had offered him a choice, he had made his choice clear. And then when they had been discussing what to do with Mick, he had said he would take care of him and abandoned him of that hellhole of a world, without knowing if he would make it back to get him, and he had not._

As he came back to himself, Hugo was standing close to him, staring up at him with querying eyes. 

“I did leave him. He was screwing up the job, and he already knew I didn’t like that. I kill people when they screw up my jobs. Well, not him, but anybody else who screws up badly.”

“You know where he is.” Hugo gestured at the door. “And we have a deal?”

Leonard-Iepetus nodded. “Yes, we have a deal.”

The Jackal followed him as he left.

“Kronos,” Iepetus said at the doorway to his room.

Kronos froze. “What part of ‘I never want to talk to you again’ did you miss, Doppelganger?” 

Leonard-Iepetus strode in. The Jackal hung back by the door, but nodded at Leonard-Iepetus as he strode by. He licked his lips and positioned himself before Kronos. “Mick,” he said.

Kronos had speed on his side, had always had speed on his side, and in a fluid motion had Leonard-Iepetus up against the wall by his neck with one hand and had his hand clenched against Leonard-Iepetus’ belly armor in a way that said one wrong move and he could rip Leonard Iepetus’ bowels out. 

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t end your miserable excuse for a life now, Doppelganger. You do not get to copy his movements, his speech, his use of my former name. What part of that are you missing?”

He had misjudged Kronos’ memories, how many of them remained lost to the Induction Process. All of them had been, that must have been why Kronos had the Process done several times, but Kronos must have recalled them far faster with his former partner at his side, Iepetus’ presence serving as a reminder of the memories Kronos had gone through the Process again to avoid. 

He moved so his back was further pressed against the wall and his abdomen a little further away from Kronos’ fist and sought the hand that was around his neck with his fingers. “The part where I am Leonard Snart, not his doppelganger. And I came to get my partner back,” he answered. “If you don’t want that.”

Kronos dug his fist into his stomach, right into a scar of Lewis’ making, making Leonard-Iepetus wince. “You’re a liar and a bad liar at that. Where do you get off causing another bounty hunter to remember things they’d really rather forget like that?” 

“I’d really prefer it you dug your fist anywhere but there. You and me both know about that scar.”

Kronos’ face blanched and his eyes grew wider. “You aren’t telling the truth. He wouldn’t come after me. He wouldn’t go through the Induction Process for nothing. But good shot. Don’t know where your twisted mind got this idea, Doppelganger. Don’t know why, either. But I don’t actually care.” 

“Mick,” he mouthed, but it didn’t make noise.

Kronos continued, “Either way, I’m going to kill you now. And then I’m going to have the Induction Process done on me again. To erase that sonovabitch from my mind and to forget that he meant more to me than I meant to him in the end. And your friend by the door won’t stop me if he knows what good for him. And the Time Masters won’t stop me either. I am their best tracker after all and one of their best bounty hunters.” He began closing his hand on Leonard-Iepetus’ neck.

“Mick,” he was able to make sound this time, fingers wrapping around Kronos’ hand. 

Kronos flinched at the name, and his hands convulsed further, and judging by the twitches his fingers were making, it was at least partially involuntary. If he was Mick instead of Kronos at the moment, his hands would be searching for his lighter. Time to backpeddle. 

“ _Kronos_.” The hands stopped convulsing.

“You don’t get to call me that name ever, Doppelganger. I’m Kronos to you.”

“Fine, _Kronos_. Why don’t you believe it’s me? Went through hell before to get things I wanted, and you know it. Holding back that poor bachorette’s hair for five hours to get access to her fiance’s safe. Acting like Rathaway’s ex around his homophobic parents to get access to that painting, though that may have been more to piss them off. That time we crawled through the sewers because our getaway driver fell through. Oh and the full week in solitary that I spent to get your ass out that time you was put in for life.”

Kronos dropped him, face pulling back into a snarl. “You can’t be him. He picked them. The Waverider. Partnership done. I was out. He just didn’t have the decency or the guts to kill me, is all.” 

Leonard-Iepetus put his hand to his neck where Kronos had had his fingers pressing. “You know me. I didn’t kill you. If it was partnership done, and you fucked up in the middle of a job, I would have.” 

“No, he wouldn’t have. Even if it was partnership done. They got under his skin with that hero bullshit. He never did sentimental previously.” 

“I was willing to stick with the job until it was finished. Then we would bail. With all our finds, I might add. That’s all. Still never did sentimental. Not even aboard the Waverider.” 

Kronos gritted his teeth, looking around the room before looking back at Leonard-Iepetus. “I don’t believe you’re him. But let’s say I’m willing to play along for whatever twisted reason you have. You knew what that ship was doing to you; you knew what that ship was doing to our partnership, and still you picked them.” 

He shook his head. “I didn’t. It was a single job. Kill Savage, and then we were out." 

Kronos gave a laugh, if one could call a noise that derisive a laugh. “You were liking the hero bullshit too much. It wasn’t going to be just one job, and you know it. Either that, or heroic shit make people stupid.” 

He had to smirk at that. “Heroing does make people stupid. On that we can agree. But I wasn’t about to become a hero and wear spandex and go zipping around protecting the city or the timeline like the Scarlet Speedster or anything.” 

Kronos stared at him, fingers picking up a thing to tinker with. “Are you just lying to me or ya lying to yourself as well? You picked hero bullshit. I picked here. It’s not criminal. But it gives me orders and lets me do my thing.” 

“It doesn’t let you do your thing. It took away your fire.” 

“They treated the pyromania.” 

“You liked fire as well as had pyromania. And now your fingers are twitching for it again.” 

“Because you reminded me of who I once was and never want to be again. Even if you are Snart, which you aren’t, I’m not coming with you. Not to the Waverider. Not even back to Central where Red can continue trying to make you a hero, and one of these days succeed, and then where will we be? You’ll turned me into the pigs, thinking it’s best, and I’ll be in jail.” 

Leonard-Iepetus leveled Kronos with a gaze. “Do you still steal? Do you go out and stick your hands into someone’s pockets and come away with their wallet or walk into a bar or a bank and stick ‘em up and walk away with their cash? Do the Time Masters still let you do that?” 

Kronos flinched. “I’m happier as a bounty hunter. They let me shoot things and I don’t get in trouble for it. But you had to go and call up old memories of Snart. And now I’m not happy anymore. You’ll understand why I’m going to go report you now and get the Induction Process done on both of us again. Though it’s probably screwing with me to have it done so many times.” Kronos strode past him towards the door. He meet Jackal’s eyes. “Out of my way, Jackal.” 

Leonard-Iepetus closed his eyes and let a sigh escape him, both at the thought of the Induction Process and his loss. “Shoot me first, Kronos.” 

Kronos turned to him. “What?” 

Leonard-Iepetus repeated. “If you ain’t coming with me, they’ll take me out and shoot me. Or turn the Induction Process up to eleven so I don’t even have cultural references to help me remember myself.” 

Kronos stepped back over to him and gazed into his eyes. “You’re terrified of that?" 

Leonard-Iepetus nodded. “That more than being shot. Been shot before. As you know. It was unpleasant. But not as unpleasant as a second Induction Process I might not come back from. So, I ask again: I want you to do me the favor of shooting me.” 

He flicked the snap holding Kronos’ gun and hooked it from the holster on his back. Kronos reached to catch it, and Leonard-Iepetus let him have the stock and the barrel and moved the muzzle up to his chest. 

“You should have no problem with that, Kronos. If this is the end of our partnership, I want you to show me. I am not going through the Induction Process again. So either you shoot me or they do, or they have the Pilgrim go back to my timeline and kill me earlier. Wouldn’t be difficult. When I’m fourteen, just distract you so I get shivved. When Alexa went down, just make one of the devices we used to get out of that mess faulty. When I rescued you from the fire, just knock one of the beams down. And no one need ever know.” 

Kronos pulled the gun out of Leonard’s hands and put it back in the holster on his back. “Use the Shell and Ghost to escape. Get out of here.” Kronos turned towards the door. 

Leonard caught his arm. “Goddamnit, Mick. I came in to get you out. I went through losing myself to have a chance at getting you out. I may have picked the job over you the first time around, and you can’t hold that against me, I am a thief who puts the thrill of a job well done above all else, and you knew that when you agreed to be my partner. But this time, I picked you. I left the job.” 

Kronos began making a noise that sounded like growling in the back of his throat. “Do you mean that? About it just being a job?” 

Leonard nodded. “It’s a job to save the world, but when it was done, I was always gonna show up back in Central, delete all records that we had done it, and pull a really big job, not sure what yet, but it’s gonna be nice. Or stealing the Waverider and taking her for a spin. If we don’t cause a time anomaly, I’m willing to bet nobody’ll come after us. What do you say? London fire – bury a couple things in a place only we know, dig ‘em up, sell them; bet they’ll be worth a fortune; Library of Alexandra – how much do you think museums would pay for some of those artifacts? And when was it? I’m going out on a limb here, so you gotta help me if I get it wrong, 1870s when the kings’ palace in Paris burned down? How much do you think some of that would be worth? And we could sell it legit to a museum, make ourselves a bigger cut as we won’t have to fence it.” 

Kronos’ shoulders were starting to shrug in and out. 

Leonard approached. “What do you say, Mick? Wanna give it another chance?” 

Kronos’ gave his head a little shake. 

Leonard approached a little closer. “Can we still be partners?” he ventured in a soft tone that he made damn sure nobody else ever heard him use; he knew Jackal would keep it a secret. 

“Stop,” Kronos croaked out, making an effort to stop his shoulder from moving visible in the tightness in his neck and jaw. He set himself into Kronos’ battle stance, making it clear that a wall could more easily be moved than him. 

Leonard stopped moving forward and closed his eyes. “Fine. You want out? Just say the word, and I’ll leave. Wouldn’t make that offer to anyone else, Mick.” He hoped his voice wasn’t betraying how not okay he was with that option, but he had to give it: this was Mick, after all, not another temporary one-job-and-done arrangement. “Won’t go back to the Waverider either. I’ll just go back to Central and go back to doing a couple jobs here and there that Scarlet won’t even hear about.” 

“Are you at all sorry for having abandoned me there?” 

Leonard reopened his eyes. “Do you mean would I do it again or am I sorry circumstances had to lead to it?” 

“You know the answer to that.” 

“Mick, I won’t lie to you. I’d make that same decision again given the same circumstances. But God do I wish circumstances could have been different. I understand if that ain’t enough.” 

He pulled the lighter he’d swiped from Declan out of his pocket, took Kronos’ hand, and pressed the lighter into Kronos’ hand. “See you around.” 

He started to turn out off the room. “Jackal, I need a ride back to 2016.” He started to the Jackal who was leaning against the wall in a manner that spoke of disinterest, but Leonard had seen his ears twitching during his and Kronos conversation. 

The Jackal tipped his head. 

“Leonard,” Mick said behind him. And it was Mick speaking to. His voice had a different quality to it than Kronos’, a more musical and gravely tone than just the monotony that seemed to have been deliberate on both the Time Masters’ and bounty hunter’s part. Leonard stopped, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. Mick continued, “Len. Wait. I’m coming with you.” 

The Jackal bowed his head, a small smile across his features. 

Len gritted his teeth, glancing up at Mick. “Now, I might have agreed to help Hugo and the Jackal with a revolt against the Time Masters.” 

Mick groaned. 

“But I think we can do that just by introducing Hugo and the Jackal to the Waverider. Then, we’ll go home.” 

\-- 

Len leaned over the comm and announced, “Leonard Snart and Mick Rory, requesting permissions to dock,” which got a laugh out of Mick. 

“Leonard! Oh my God!” that sounded like Sara. 

“Wow, it’s good to hear your voice, man,” that was Jax. 

“Mr. Snart! Your mission was successful then?” and that was Rip. 

Mick leaned over the comm to the Shell. “If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be talking to you now. And you know it.” 

“Hello to you, Mr. Rory.” 

“That’s Captain Rory to you, Captain.” 

There was a muttering aboard. Len followed up Mick’s comment with his own, “We’re going back to Central. Had enough of the timestream to last a while. But first, we have some information you might want to know about the Time Masters and Vandal Savage. Then, we’re going home.” 

“Gideon, let them in.” 


End file.
